Themes: Cons and Scams, Going Straight, Nothing Goes Right
Main Cast: Dana Carvey, Robert Loggia, Todd Graff, Julia Campbell, Milo O'Shea
Release Year: 1990
Country: US
Run Time: 105 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG13
Plot
Saturday Night Live star Dana Carvey had his first leading role on the big screen in this comedy. Eddie (Carvey) and Lou (Todd Graff) are a pair of small-time con artists deep in debt to Pinkie (Mike Bacarella), a loan shark. During a lean period, Eddie and Lou resort to breaking and entering to make some money, but as they're clearing out a house, they overhear the answering machine announce that the owner is away on business for a few weeks -- and the housesitter won't be able to stop by. Eddie and Lou settle in and enjoy their good fortune, which just gets better when Milt (Robert Loggia) pays a visit. Milt assumes that Eddie is the housesitter, who is a close friend of his son. Eddie is soon introduced to Milt's beautiful daughter, Annie (Julia Campbell), and Milt decides that Eddie is executive material at his successful manufacturing firm. Soon Eddie starts to wonder if he should go on lying to the people he's come to like -- and there's the little matter of the 60,000 dollars that Eddie and Lou swiped from Pinkie's car. Opportunity Knocks also features Milo O'Shea and James Tolkan. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Review
The Dana Carvey vehicle Opportunity Knocks is an amiable but otherwise completely generic mistaken-identity farce. Feeling a special sense of déjà vu may be Robert Loggia, who plays the back-slapping CEO seduced by the fresh business ideas of an impostor (Carvey) -- in other words, the exact same role he played in Big. On the other hand, playing a slightly different role -- to good effect -- is Carvey himself. Too often pigeonholed as an impersonation comic, Carvey is not a good enough one to keep a movie afloat with impressions alone -- as was painfully evident in the 2002 stinker Master of Disguise. Here, he does do a couple funny voices -- the first President Bush and an Indian national among them. But much more often he's just a sympathetic everyman, and he's almost disarmingly likeable when free from his usual array of burdensome character affectations. As with most movies featuring a morally conflicted con artist falling in love with his mark, the script contains any number of moments when the ruse seems too thin to escape notice. But these are mostly tolerable, and the script's greatest sin is what it shares with the production on the whole -- being by the numbers in almost every respect. Sadly, this comedy may qualify as Carvey's best solo (i.e. non-Wayne's World) project, which says more about the SNL alum's lackluster film career than the strength of Opportunity Knocks. ~ Derek Armstrong, All Movie Guide
James Tolkan - Sal Nichols; Doris Belack - Mona; Sally Gracie - Connie; Mike Bacarella - Pinkie; John M. Watson, Sr. - Harold Monroe; Beatrice Fredman - Bubbie; Thomas McElroy - Men's Room Attendant; Jack McLaughlin-Gray - Wine Steward; Gene Honda - Japanese Businessman; Del Close - Williamson; Michael Oppenheimer - Chase; Paul Greatbatch - Driver; Sarajane Avidon - Commissioner's Secretary; Mindy Suzanne Bell - Executive; Richard Steven Mann - Executive; Michelle Johnston - Club Singer; Bill Bradshaw - David; Don Cagen - Bar Mitzvah Band; Rebecca Cagen - Bar Mitzvah Band; John Cothran, Jr. - Building Commissioner; Paul Dallas - Bar Mitzvah Band; Tal Galomb - Bar Mitzvah Boy; Randy Harrah - Bar Mitzvah Band; James Hassett - Vendor; Peter Hennes - Bar Mitzvah Band; Mark Hutter - Stan; Lorna Raver Johnson - Eddie's Secretary; Joshua Livingstone - Nathan; Kent Logsdon - Sales Associate; Ron Max - Sal's Associate; Pennington McGee; Jed Mills - Club MC; Michelle Quigley - Woman at Accident; Judith Scott - Milt's Secretary; Jill Shellabarger - Ginger; Adam Jason Weiss - Myron; Steven Zoloto - Bar Mitzvah Band; Mark Ross - Jonathan
Credit
Leslie Pope - Art Director, Jeffery Hornaday - Choreography, Mark Gordon - Co-producer, Nan Cibula - Costume Designer, Donald Petrie - Director, Marion Rothman - Editor, Virginia Katz - Editor, Miles Goodman - Composer (Music Score), Becky Mancuso - Musical Direction/Supervision, Timothy R. Sexton - Musical Direction/Supervision, Rodger Jacobs - Makeup, David Chapman - Production Designer, Steven Poster - Cinematographer, Ray Hartwick - Producer, Christopher Meledandri - Producer, Derek R. Hill - Set Designer, Sam Barkan - Special Effects, Ernie F. Orsatti - Stunts, Nat Bernstein - Screenwriter, Mitchel Katlin - Screenwriter
Opportunity Knocks is a 1990comedy film, starring Dana Carvey as a Chicagocon man who assumes the identity of the friend of a wealthy businessman who is on vacation, and ends up falling in love with the man's sister.
Synopsis
Con men Eddie Farrel (Carvey) and Lou Pesquino (Todd Graff) need cash fast and pretend to be repair men to fix a fake gas leak. The con doesn't work, and after they escape, they find an empty house that they decide to burglarize. However, when they learn from a message on the answering machine that the owner is out of the country and the man who was going to house sit can't make it, they spend the night instead. The next day, on the run from thugs sent by local gangster Sal Nichols (James Tolkan), to whom they owe money, they find themselves separated from each other and Eddie takes refuge in the empty house. In the morning, Eddie walks out of the shower and meets Mona Malkin (Doris Belack), whose son owns the house. She assumes Eddie is her son's friend Jonathan Albertson, who is supposed to be house sitting. Eddie plays along, meeting Mona's businessman husband Milt (Robert Loggia), who offers him a job at his company, and Eddie decides to run a "love con" on Milt's daughter Annie (Julia Campbell) in order to gain access to Milt's money. However, Lou is captured by Sal Nichols, and Eddie, Lou, and Eddie's aunt and uncle (Milo O'Shea and Sally Gracie) must conspire to get Sal off their backs for good. Along the way, Eddie falls in love with Annie Malkin.
Soundtrack
The song "Cruel, Crazy, Beautiful World" by Johnny Clegg is featured over the end credits.
